I thought I

tossed the magic bean.

Threw it deftly

past my shoulder.

I took credit.

Impossibly it flew.

Out through strained glass.

Caught by dirt.

Cooked by sun.

Served by rain.

That there was life at all

was not enough to make me believe.

I needed grace for that.

I didn’t mind the hoeing,

the sweating,

the building.

I loved my castle in the sky.

Goliath arrived singing,

sweetly pursuing,

eventually bellowing,

bruise over promising bruise.

Then gone.

Golden hens and golden hatchlings
could not quell his lumbering greed.
Oh the grace that backed me down and down and down.
A humbling descent.
The sky all push,the ground all pull.
I praise the ax that cut me toppling to the truth.